Middle East & Central Asia Department

Iran: the bloody summer of 2009
The IISH has started an extensive project to document the tumultuous presidential elections in Iran on 12 June 2009. Thousands of photographs, videos, films, leaflets, posters, and weblogs have been made during the campaign, and there were massive demonstrations shortly after the elections as well as a bloody repression of these protests.

Cheshmandaz (Cesmandaz) Yearbook collection
The IISH has received a collection of letters from Iranian researchers, writers, and poets living outside Iran, together with unpublished writings that have not been published in the Cheshmandaz yearbook. This collection is valuable for research in the areas of political and social opinions of Iranians in Europe in the 1980s and 1990s.

Iran and the First World War: battleground of the Great Powers is a collection of articles on some of the Iranian social and political changes which happened during the First World War. This book is edited by Touraj Atabaki, Senior Research Fellow at the International Institute of Social History. This book originally was published in 2006 by IB Tauris in London and the Persian translation is now published by Qoqnoos Publishing House in Tehran.

Newspaper Seraj-al-Akhbar
On October 9, 1911 the Persian newspaper of Seraj-al-Akhbar was published by Mahmud Tarzi (1865 - 1933) in Kabul.

Social and Political Developments in Iran 1941-1946
This collection of documents deals mainly with tribal affairs in south-western Iran between 1941 and 1946, the formation and dissolution of the Southern Movement of Iran.

Bukhara-ye-sharif
An almost complete run of the first Persian-language newspaper in Central Asia, Bukhara-ye-sharif (1912) is now available in the International Institute of Social History.

Iraq-Iran War (1980-1988)
The IISH has received a collection of documents on the eight years' war between Iraq and Iran (1980-1988). This interesting and rich source is available to researchers and interested parties.

Union Catalogue
Recently published: Union Catalogue of Persian, Azebaijani, Ottoman Turkish, and Arabic Serials and Newspapers in the Libraries of the Republic of Azebaijan and the Republic of Georgia, edited by Touraj Atabaki, Solmaz Rustmova-Towidi, Grigol Beradze, Georg Sanikidze.

The State and The Subaltern. Authoritarian Modernisation in Turkey and Iran, Touraj Atabaki
In the 1920s Turkey and Iran faced political upheaval as both states attempted to find their routes to modernity. This is the first study to observe the practice of modernization in Turkey and Iran not only from above...

Iranian Documentation Collection
The collections of the Centre for Iranian Documentation and Research (CIDR) in Paris were moved to the IISH in December 2005.

Men of Order
Touraj Atabaki, Eric J. Zürcher, Men of Order. Authoritarian Modernisation in Turkey and Iran, 1918-1942
London/New York: I.B. Taurus, 2004; ISBN 1-86064-426-0, 288 pp.

The Triumphs and Travails of Authoritarian Modernisation in Turkey and Iran
This second workshop (Amsterdam, 2003) attempted to study the process of modernisation in Turkey and Iran from 'below', i.e. how modernisation was assumed in Turkey and Iran.

Repression, Deportation and Forced Migration in the Caucasus 1920-1950
The third conference on 'Repression, Deportation and Forced Migration in the Caucasus 1920 -1950' was held in Tehran on May 25 - 26, 2003.

Inaugural lecture available online
Touraj Atabaki, Beyond Essentialism. Who Writes Whose Past in the Middle East and Central Asia? Inaugural Lecture. (2003, pdf file, 12 pp., 195 Kb).

MECA History and Activities
The activities of the Middle-east and Central Asia sector of the Institute began in 1995. The area of activity of this sector is the study of social movements in Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, Caucasus and the Central Asia.

Photo Collection: Afghan Migrant Labourers in Iran
Since the late 1960s, the flourishing economy of Iran had been attracting many Afghan labourers. These photos show the life of the about 2 to 3 million Afghanis in the construction sector in Iran.

Collection Sadiqeh Dowlatabadi
Sadiqeh Dowlatabadi was one of the vanguards of the women movement in Iran. She opened the first school for girls in Isfahan, established the 'Association of Isfahan Khawateen' and published the first women's periodical in Isfahan called Zaban-e Zanan.

Photo Collection Tehran: The Hot Summer of 1999
Following two decades of absolutist-theocratic rule in the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the summer of 1999 the streets of the capital Tehran were once more crowded with hundreds of youths and students who called for change and reform.

Azerbaijan Joz'-e La- Yanfak-e Iran
Azerbaijan, an Inseparable Part of Iran was the first publication of Iranians residing in the Caucasus. This newspaper was published mostly in the Azerbaijani language with some articles in Persian, in Baku (the capital of Azerbaijan) on January 28th, 1918 by the Democratic Party of Iran (Baku Branch).

KAR: Organ-e markezi Sazman-e Charikha-ye Feda'i-ye Khalq-e Iran
The first issue of 'Kar' as the Central Organ of Sazman-e Charikha-ye Feda'i-ye Khalq-e Iran (Organization of the Iranian People's Feda'i Guerrilla - OIPFG) was published in 1978 as a weekly periodical in Tehran.